July 30, 2009

With so many things to consider when starting out online in the business world, SMM or Social Media Marketing can be one of the most important. This is a term that is used to describe how participating in differing online social groups can help a business generate traffic to their site to produce sales. It can also be of great assistance in building important business contacts that can help you become a reputable business on the Internet.

This form of Internet marketing can also be used to attain branding and marketing goals through participation in various online social groups. The term Social Media is an all-inclusive term to describe the space and activities therein, such as videos, images, audio and written content.

Using sites like Twitter, Facebook and other social circles, can increase the number of people that will see what you have to offer. It can be a powerful tool when you are trying to increase the amount of traffic to your website. Social Media Marketing can increase conversion, sales tracking, page views and ad exposure. It can also be used as a branding tool – creating a positive brand association, and keeping it positive.

These are low cost ways that a person can generate the traffic that they want. Many of the people that will come to your site could potentially become regulars if they like what they see while they are there.

In using these sites you can get other people to your website with the use of links. Good links will promote even more traffic to your site. It will also help the ranking that your site has with search engines, which, in turn, can be extremely important in increasing your revenues.

Get out there and link to other blogs and websites. But make sure you’re becoming a reputable part of the community by adding valuable content and comments.

There are a lot of simple things that a person can do to make their website continue to achieve readership. This is key when it comes to Social Media Marketing. Having an informative and interesting site will keep readers wanting more. In turn, if they want more, they are also apt to tell others about the cool site that they found. This is another way that SMM works for us.

Here are a few tips when you are starting out. Make it about others. At first, limit talking about yourself. This isn’t to say that you can’t provide a link to your site at the end of your comment; it just means don’t go into a community with a sales pitch right off the bat.

You can reach out to the influencers in your niche. Don’t waste their time though. Be polite and sincere and you might get help.

Next, contribute quality content. When you comment on other’s sites, don’t just say “me too” or “nice post” just to get your link there. If it’s a site that you’re interested in, you should have quality comments or questions to post. Become a real part of the community and your comments will be respected. This respect will lead to better branding for you and your site.

Quality content also applies to your site. You want to have a site that people visit to get information. This doesn’t happen overnight. Building your brand and your brand reputation takes long-term commitment. Your goal is to get people to your site, so your site should always be filled with updated and high quality information to keep them coming back for more.

Also, when thinking about keeping the readers coming back for more, make sure that the way your website looks is appealing to a reader. A nice looking site can make a world of difference when it comes to the amount of traffic that will visit it. Keeping things simple and easy for a reader to follow is of the utmost importance. If they get frustrated, the chances of them coming back are slim to nil at best.

Building a community is also a great way to have people keep coming back to your site. They are able to talk with others that have things to say on the same topic, not to mention that they feel special being included. Having some fun events or options available is also something that many communities have done. These have proven to be highly successful as well.

Here’s a short list of some of the many Social Media sites available: Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Metacafe, Scribd, Digg, Flickr, Reddit, Technorati and Blogcatalog. There are many, many more.

When it comes to getting to the root of how to get the people to your website, don’t neglect the Social Media Marketing aspect. This can be worth all the time that you put into it. You will see this as results in sales and rankings begin to soar.